The military are necessary?

In my country we've had a "war" , a battle between the goverment and the FARC the oldest insurgent group In the world! This battles has many nuances in all our history. Despite i'm 17 years i'm profundly antimilitarist because the humanity has to find a way to solve the problems in a ways that not killing each others. It's impossible that a part of the humanity are training for the destruction and dead that can't be! Insted of we fight we can turn military service back in social service for helping people with very tough lifes, build houses and avoid the family violence.

Mar 18 2013:
The rosy idea of a world without wars will remain as it is. Simply rosy. Power corrupts, money corrupts, and when these sets leaders of the pedestal of pride, they begin to control men like puppets.
A war may be an evil-vs-evil scenario; or an evil-vs-good case. But there will always be cases when the pride of one side stands against the other, or when the pride of both sides clash.

The world needs the military; we just need to hope and pray that the greater power would lie on the arms of the just/good side.

Mar 19 2013:
Feyisayo
How can you say the world needs military forces, especially after you admitted something I continue to spew here on Ted?
That money is the reason and cause for corruption and when you get rid of the reasons for corruption, you get rid of crime, war, slavery, poverty, inequality, greed and death that pays.
I take it you are not at all interested at doing something like this? You want to keep corruption?
You personally like slavery, or poverty, or inequality, or war and the money to be made off of dying people?
You actually say, "hope and pray that the greater power would lie on the arms of the just/good side.'
Which means you actually believe such nonsense, such lies and believe your kind of evil over someone else's.
Wow. Here you pretend to be a man of God and yet you support war on others.
You are good people and they are bad, right? So, you are on the side of those who love to kill others, simply by claiming they are bad and giving you the choice of, "are you with us or against us?"
Wow.
You don't really believe in God do you?
You just pretend to, don't you?
Well, since you say you do, you will have to answer for these beliefs and none of your quotes will work, me thinks, because it will be your heart-of-hearts beliefs that connect to this support of corruption, and blood letting, as long as it is you and your side spilling someone else's blood.
Yeah, that's usually how it goes.
Your words sound like the words of a puppet.

Mar 19 2013:
God have mercy. The military of a just nation is like the police. No sane human being loves bloodshed, but there are instances where cops would have to shoot to kill criminally-minded fellows so that other law-abiding citizens can live in peace.

Mar 22 2013:
There is no such thing as a "criminal mind" until you can so assess someone in a society in which there are absolutely no reasons to be criminal. Then, you may have a criminal mind on your hands.
Sounds like the same ole B.S. being handed out by religion and religious believers.
Even though it says, "Thou shalt not kill," only those telling you not to kill are allowed to kill, kill whomever they wish to or demonize, and as long as you are on their side, you are ok.
And they are still killing and people like you are still supporting them and defending them.

It also doesn't state who or what to not kill so it means exactly what it says, "kill nothing!"
Well, at least you know where you are going.

Mar 21 2013:
Ideally, there would be no need for military service. However, there is in fact a need for it. For example, what would happen if a country like Israel disbanded its military in the name of social well being? As much as we would want the Muslim extremists to set down their arms, and embrace a peace, that would not be. The terror cells would have a field day. Nothing to oppose them, Israel would crumble. Even more would die

Maybe you don't care what happens to Israel. Well let us say that Colombia disbands their military in the name of social well being. What then is to stop this FARC from seizing control of the country? How would that affect your life?

Mar 21 2013:
It is a utopian idea, but logically in my opinion, the people residing within a certain community need to right to defend their ideals against tyranny. As humans develop greater empathy the need to use these weapons may cease as we find ourselves dealing with situations logically. Defense is vital to peace, there are many illogical ideals and a wide array of unique differences from culture to culture. Without defense and citizens having the right to protect themselves, the illogical communities suffering from their ideals and social structure, will resolve their economic, social, or political problems through the theft of the resources to keep control of their power. It is not weapons that are the problem but the people who use them. If the whole world understood the fundamental principles of peace, and worked to develop rather than steal, it wouldn't matter if each person in the world had a gun or bomb. Restricting access to weapons does nothing but create an underground black market for the few irrational people focused on stealing from other areas rather than be a productive member of a peaceful society, and it would be much cheaper and easier to take down an un-armed community than one with the resources to defend their peaceful ideals. Think about it like this, if i walk into a grocery store (a business developed to provide a wide variety of products at a cheaper price) and i decide to steal a candy bar (an action which is going to force prices to increase to some degree and does not benefit the community what so ever) i am much more likely to steal it from a store with a single, unarmed clerk, than a store with a security guard, alarm system, and surveillance camera's.

Mar 19 2013:
No they are not.
The propaganda, that eventually turns into brainwashing (what you believe), is that the people need them
when it is the people who don't want war, don't want military, military spending and military invasions domestically and internationally, don't want to fight other peoples and countries and just want peace.
You cannot simultaneously prepare for war and peace.
You must choose one and work on that.
The only people who want militaries are those who don't want peace. Leaders, corporations, bankers, politicians, all those people we don't want or need. Notice, "don't need" is more true than the lie that we do need them.
They only create problems, pollute the earth, kill millions, reign fear and terror down upon unsuspecting peaceful people, steal a nations money and use it to do horrible things instead of using it to solve problems.
The point being, they don't have any intention of solving any human problems. They cause them.
Today, because what I have said here is true, particularly about the general populace of the earth, the only way to go to war is to fool the people into agreeing to war.
That means lying (propaganda), that turns into brainwashing (what they now believe is true) and using terror and fear to bully them into acquiescing.
The total money figure to solve all the worlds problems, of every kind, is an astronomical figure. This was arrived at by a World Commission that began the project in the early 1980's. I think it took 10 years.
This total figure was only 1/4 of the world's total military spending. Only 1/4.
To allow this to continue is what real shame should feel and look like to all of us, everywhere, in each country.
We have the numbers to stop this and we should. We should stop everything else we do to do so.
Nothing else could possibly matter.

Mar 19 2013:
Some would say that as long as there's oil to be sucked out of someone else's land (whether they like it or not), then yes, the military will be necessary to secure that privilege in order to sustain our Westernised lifestyles.

That same person might also have noticed that we will go in all guns blazing to get it, with God on our side to justify our every action, but if the host country resists, then they are all labelled as terrorists.

Mar 19 2013:
Mr. Perez we have been killing one another since the beginning of time. Why? power. Until human beings can come up with another way to use all this primitive energy....we will continue to justify the need for wars.
one other thought...I wonder if I won a war on world dominance....... what would I ever do with it all ? !

Mar 18 2013:
I don't believe that a military is "necessary", but our culture is a very insane culture because we live in a fear-based culture. Consequentially, it APPEARS necessary even though a more rational mind would disagree.

Mar 18 2013:
Yes, but many great men including Gandhi and Einstein were never willing to do things that supported military efforts. Okay, Einstein provided a little moral support in WWII. The United States has a long tradition of respecting contientious objectors. Others are willing to fight to protect that view. Remember that Gandhi's autobiography advocated that the Jews use civil disobedience against the Nazis. That was an approach that worked well against legalistic Englishmen; however, it's a little humorous when thinking about applying it to war criminals. It's your call, but it seems that even the C.O.'s come out to fight if the foes are bad enough.

TED Conversations Archives

We’ve spent three years sharing Ideas, Debates and Questions — and learned a lot.

Now we’re going on hiatus to retool and rebuild from the inside out for a better conversation experience.